Mount Gizmos

That sucks, you've paid for them, but you don't have possession. I still have a couple of my old Audible books: "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" and the two Dirk Gently books. I've ripped them from the CD's I made so I can listen to them on any MP3 player.

fj12ryder wrote:

It sounds like Audible has changed if you can't burn a copy to a CD. You could do that when I was renting from them. Of course that was over 10 years ago. I had a couple books I did that to because I liked them so much. They're too expensive now for me since the library has mostly the same books and they're free.

Maybe the OP isn't in the US? I know download rights vary by country.


My Audible app lets me download books and listen offline, but that's in the US. You can't burn them to a CD, they reside in protected storage on the device. Although hypothetically a tool might exist to extract them, for educational purposes only of course.

ProClipUSA.com

camperkilgore wrote:

Tom_M wrote:

camperkilgore wrote:
Now I think we can buy the books, and that makes it so we can put them on any type of storage device, but that gets really expensive. I haven't found another service with as good a selection of books.

You can download audio books from your library. You will have a choice of thousands of books. You need a card from your local library and will need to install software on your device.

I will check into that. Can the downloads be kept for a long time, or do they expire?

Our library audiobooks are just like regular books: they expire after 21 days (3 weeks), but can be renewed. You have the option of putting a hold on a book and it will be checked out to you and you will be notified when it is. Works very well. The nice part is you can do all this online, which makes it easy to access while you're on the road.

It sounds like Audible has changed if you can't burn a copy to a CD. You could do that when I was renting from them. Of course that was over 10 years ago. I had a couple books I did that to because I liked them so much. They're too expensive now for me since the library has mostly the same books and they're free.

Regarding audio books from our public library: It seems that of the many books that are downloadable, very few are actually available. We have to wait for books to become available, because they are already "checked out", so to speak.

I'm afraid we are spoiled by the audio book paid membership thing. There's no waiting list for books, so we can download any book they have when we are ready for it.

It used to be a lot better at Audible.com before Amazon bought them out. We could download 12 books(1 year allotment) all at once if we wanted. Now we can only download 1/month, but the good thing is, if we don't like it we can exchange it for another using the same monthly credit. We can accrue as many as 6 or 7 books before we go on a long road trip.

Tom_M wrote:

camperkilgore wrote:
Now I think we can buy the books, and that makes it so we can put them on any type of storage device, but that gets really expensive. I haven't found another service with as good a selection of books.

You can download audio books from your library. You will have a choice of thousands of books. You need a card from your local library and will need to install software on your device.

I will check into that. Can the downloads be kept for a long time, or do they expire?

camperkilgore wrote:
Now I think we can buy the books, and that makes it so we can put them on any type of storage device, but that gets really expensive. I haven't found another service with as good a selection of books.

You can download audio books from your library. You will have a choice of thousands of books. You need a card from your local library and will need to install software on your device.

Gdetrailer wrote:

camperkilgore wrote:
No, not a snow capped peak.

The gizmo's I'm referring to is the electronic stuff that needs to be mounted in the tow vehicle. MANY gizmos.

I have a rear view monitor, gps, two cell phones, tire pressure monitor, and sometimes an ipad mini which we need to access while on the road. We have audio books on the cell phone for listening.

I have spent hours trying various mounts that wiggle, flop, turn loose, and in some states illegal on the windshield. I also read about how some thieves look for the windshield mounts in vehicles to target the most likely ones to break into. At one time I had four suction cup mounts up there.

So I have been trying to get everything down off the windshield and it ain't easy. Our tow vehicle is a Dodge Ram pickup, and the dash is not very mount friendly.

If anybody out there has come up with a great solution to this problem, I would love to hear about it, and pictures would be fantastic.

You have way too much junk, thin the herd.

Pick ONE of THE MOST "important" items that you desperately "need" to drive and all the rest NEEDS to be turned off and placed well outside the drivers area.

No one "NEEDS" two cell phones in order to drive.

TPMS, well folks HAVE been driving for well over ONE HUNDRED YEARS without the "need" for this gadget..

Tablet, well not needed at all, just another distraction..

Rearview camera? That IS what YOUR MIRRORS ARE FOR and they don't need power, wires or will quit working at a bad time..

GPS, well your copilot beside you should be working that thing or at least be using a paper map, not you the driver..

As far as Audio books goes, ditch the cell phones for this, instead replace your built in stereo with a newer unit which has USB input and even BluTooth.. You can often download audio books, rip audio CDs and convert those to MP3 files, place on a USB flash drive and be done with that cellphone thing..

Just because you have "technology" it doesn't always need to be running your life. Disconnect for a while and you will find driving a lot more enjoyable.

For us, audio books are 10 times better than coffee for keeping awake on those long stretches out west. They make us safer.

Audible.com is the service we use for audio books, and the trouble with them is you can't just copy one of their books to a storage device of any kind. They are kind of like Apple. They fix it so you can't do that sort of thing. That's with the membership. Now I think we can buy the books, and that makes it so we can put them on any type of storage device, but that gets really expensive. I haven't found another service with as good a selection of books.

There's a lot of reasons why we looked to electronic devices to "help" us. After experiencing a tire failure that caused a lot of damage to our camper, we decided to invest in the TPMS. I know folks have driven millions of miles without it, but a long time ago we didn't have flimsy expensive rvs and crummy tires that blow up and tear up those flimsy rv's.

Phones don't have to be mounted. But retrieving one from a pocket or under a collection of stuff that we inevitably collect when traveling is a distraction and a dangerous one sometimes. Besides....they have to be charged, so the charging wires have got to be dealt with somehow.

I fully agree that we should all simplify and concentrate on safety. I sometimes want to just get a tent and a little car. But then the larger rv is NICE.

Good replies to my thread.

It's got me to thinkin.

Gdetrailer is right. That rear view camera is actually extraneous, because my mirrors are actually very good mirrors, and backing into some campsites is usually done by following my wifes bizarre arm waving. By the way.....that probably negates the need for the two way radios since we usually forget to get them out after we arrive anyway.

The GPS is something I cannot do without. Been too many times in heavy traffic on interstates where we have to negotiate complicated cloverleaf type intersections, and the gps has made it much less stressful. So it has to be there, and easy to hear.

Tire pressure monitor has saved a tire or two for me. Let me know when I picked up a nail and lost pressure slowly. You all know the damage that can result if a tire comes apart. So it is a must have item.

Don't really need the ipad to be mounted. We only use it to modify the route planner for the TomTom gps, because the screen is larger than the phone.

Speaking of phones:
1. My wife is getting calls all the time from the kids, so it has to be handy. Hers is the one that is the hotspot for our TomTom gps traffic updates.

2. My phone is the one we load audio books on, so it needs to be handy so that we can pause, or mute when something happens that we need quietness. We cannot do without our audiobooks..........long trips would be murder without them. They keep us awake and make the miles fly by.

So that makes 4 devices that we want to have mounted. Might be able to use her phone for audio books too, so that would get us down to 3 devices. This might work out pretty good.

It always helps to get other folks ideas. Thanks.